COMMENTAAR OP DE GODSLASTERLIJKE FILM: "THE PASSION OF CHRIST".
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Much publicity has been given to a film purporting to portray the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, which has been widely acclaimed in the USA by professed Evangelicals, with churches booking all the seats in some cinemas and doing all they can to fill them. One pastor of a charismatic church was quoted in The Scotsman (7 February 2004): “Churches used to communicate by having a little lecture time on Sunday morning. People don’t interact that way any more. Here’s a chance for us to use a modern-day technique to communicate the truth of the Bible.” The film was due to arrive in the UK in March, though not, initially at least, with such enthusiastic support. Criticisms of this film have mainly concentrated on its alleged sadism and anti-Semitism. In the USA under 17s were not to be admitted unless accompanied by an adult, because of the extreme violence depicted. It is significant that the Holy Scriptures are extremely restrained in their accounts of the physical sufferings of our Lord. This is in keeping with the fact that “the soul of His sufferings was the sufferings of His soul”. While the sufferings inflicted on Him by men were a necessary and bitter ingredient of the cup He had to drink, it was His willing submission to the righteous wrath of God He bore in the place of His people that was the major element in His atoning sacrifice.
It is the power of truth proclaimed by word in the gospel, and not human imagination, that is used by the Holy Spirit to bring sinners savingly to “behold the Lamb of God”. Roman Catholicism’s mythology and emphasis on the visual drama of the mass rather than biblical truth is the basis of the view of Christ’s passion informing this production by a conservative Roman Catholic intent on promoting his religion. Whether or not charges of anti-Semitism are justified in this case, they seem to be advanced by those to whom all religions are equally valid or invalid, or those who regard Christianity as essentially anti-Semitic, or those who would be opposed to laying the guilt of our Lord’s death at anyone’s door – who would oppose the suggestion that anyone should repent of this sin against God and embrace the previously-rejected Saviour. Apart from the general fact that the fictional film industry has been a major expression of, and contributor to, the moral corruption of societies, the particular and fundamental objection to this film is that any attempt to present an image of the Lord Jesus Christ is blasphemous. Included in the sins forbidden in the Second Commandment is “the making of any representation of God, of all or any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature whatsoever” (Larger Catechism 109; Deut 4, Rom 1). Christ, “being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was and continueth to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, for ever” (Shorter Catechism 21). It is impossible to make an artistic representation of the One in whose face and person the light of the knowledge of the glory of God is given. It is no doubt to caution against such attempts being made that the Scriptures provide no materials which could facilitate the endeavour.
The idea that the cause of the gospel can be furthered by the use of a blasphemous medium to present a Jesus who is not the Christ of God only illustrates how far removed from the gospel of the Bible and of the Reformation are so many who claim to be Evangelicals. How far removed such a stance is from that of the inspired apostle: “For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Cor 2:2-5).
Rev. Hugh M. Cartwright
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